Slow down and NEVER let your guard down!

[durkspunk2112]

I'm not a BP shooter, but I still thank the OP for sharing his story. It reminds me that I am a human being and need to slow down, including when I'm doing something for the 1000th time, because familiarity breeds complacency, which leads to accidents!

exactly.....well said.

 

[epps1919]

we had a 61 Springfield on the line for musket team at the N-SSA Nats this past weekend blow up. it looks like the breach gave way blow up in 20 pieces, the stock was in broken in 2 pieces. Two people got heart, the shooter and the guy next to him. There wasn't any real serious injures.

I here it was the guy had mistakenly loaded smokeless powder in tubes instead of black powder.

 

[bigdaddycoolfm]

i see a dislocated shoulder in your future...

Sounds like efficiency to me. One shot, kill two deer. Where's the problem?

Sent from the dark recesses of my mind.

i made the mistake once of dbl charging the powder..it didnt feel good...

 

[Melnic]

I wonder if some of the soldiers dry balled the first ones?

The fit on the civil war mini ball was loose by modern standards I thought so they could load fast correct?

 

[Threeband]

I wonder if some of the soldiers dry balled the first ones?

The fit on the civil war mini ball was loose by modern standards I thought so they could load fast correct?

Yes the Minies are a bit undersized so they load easily. They have a hollow base, and are cast of dead soft lead, so they expand to take the rifling.


You should try shooting a Minie gun. Rapid fire, no fussing with patches and short starters.


I don't know what you mean by dry balled. Do you mean ball first, powder second? I thought about that. It is possible.



------------

I doubt a double load would blow up a decent rifle, or even cause much of a problem beyond heavy recoil.

The Lindsay Double Musket of 1863 was loaded with one round in front of another. It had two hammers and nipples, the front load was fired first, then the rear load. The maker claimed the rear load could be fired first with perfect safety.
https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Lindsay+double+musket


However:

The Lindsay was designed to always drop its right hammer first to fire the front, superposed charge. If both hammers were cocked, this double rifle musket was intended to initially only drop the right one. What soldiers in the field found out was that the Lindsay, like new recruits, sometimes would have difficulty in telling right from left. If the lefthand hammer dropped first, igniting the back load, heavy recoil ensued as both loads discharged. Few Lindsays received favorable mention from the soldiers that received them in issue.

Soldiers of the 16th Michigan Volunteers in combat at Peebles Farm, VA in 1864 reported that in the heat of battle, simultaneous discharge of both charges was a common event and the stress of firing a double charge often destroyed the gun.
http://www.nramuseum.org/guns/the-g...indsay-model-1863-us-double-rifle-musket.aspx

 

[Melnic]

Dry ball,
load ball and forget the powder.
For a side lock, you can remove the nipple and drop powder down and shoot it out, but not easily done during battle and don't know what they did with a flint if you could shove enough powder in there or not through the touch hole.

My biggest difficulty at the range is someone talking to me or interrupting me in the loading process. I usually blow them off and say, "wait a minute please".

 

[Twanger]

I agree.
People like to chat at the range, and this is really bad for my loading routine.

Most of the time I forget to put the primer on the gun, and this just results in a 'click' and a test of my flinch reflex.

 

[Scottysan]

Good catch, spotting you rod marking!

 

[Clark W. Griswold]

I have a pencil mark on my ram rod. I don't always check it. I used to check it all the time to verify the measurement i made with my hand on the amount of rod that stuck out of the muzzle when I loaded.

I make a conscious effort to check my ramrod by feel every single time I load. I am confident in this method because of the fact that I used to verify my "feel" check visually every time and still do double check visually when I am on the range.

I do this because I sometimes load my gun in the dark, or load it after a shot while I have a deer in sight. If it doesn't feel "right" I won't cap until I can verify visually.